STANDOUT

I opened a can of chopped carrots to cook for myself and dumped it in the pot to heat up on the stove. To my incredible astonishment, there was a Lima bean in the can! How the heck?! It was a can of carrots… I still have no clue how a Lima bean could have gotten into the can of carrots. Though it will bug me endlessly until I figure out how this magic happened, the experience was a reminder – a reminder to Standout.

I wrote a 500 character description of this picture for a scholarship test called “Frame Your Future”. The directions said to post a picture that described your future and write a 500 character description on it. Reading over my original writing, it was not good enough. Why? I wrote how it involved my future when my heart was telling me to write about how I could positively impact your future. I used the picture to describe myself rather than to provide a life lesson. While it was originally for a scholarship test, I would now like to expand it for your sake and have it serve its appropriate purpose.

Framing Your Future and How To STANDOUT

You would think that to Standout, you have to be different, unusual or weird. This was once the status quo of Standing Out, but is now a failure. The true definition of Standing Out is to be your true self – to be comfortable with who you are, to have your individuality open to all, to be the only person you should be – YOU.

But, there is still one factor missing in the definition of Standing Out. The most crucial aspect of Standing Out is to influence everyone in your life.

“The more you try to be different, the more you look like everybody else. The more you try to be YOUnique, the more you STANDOUT”

What Standing Out Is NOT

Standing Out is not being looked at in a quizzical manner by everyone that notices you.

Standing Out is not wearing the “dunce” hat.

Standing Out is not challenging everything that is said.

Standing Out is not doing everything that you are told you “should” or “should not” do.

Standing Out is not being the center of attention everywhere you go.

Standing Out is not to have a negative spotlight on you.

How To Successfully STANDOUT

To successfully STANDOUT, you must focus on your influence of others. There is no certain way to STANDOUT than to express your character, attitude and mental/emotional persuasion upon others. Here are the key ways to STANDOUT in the world and achieve all you want in life.

  • Remain Naive: Often our parents, mentors and elders (do we still have elders?) say that we are naïve because we are ignorant of the possible consequences. My friend rewrote the definition of “naïve” when we were getting ready to move out on our own. “Naïve: inexperienced? … more like..ones dreams haven’t been crushed by society.” It is not that others can’t see the positive, the life lessons and growth that is created through being naïve, it is only that they still have not learned from their mistakes. You know that you have not learned from your mistake if you encourage others not to make the same mistake. I once argued with my dad that if I listened to everything he said and did not do the opposite or make my own mistakes what would I have learned? How would I have truly grown? I would not be me.
  • Ask Yourself: Does it empower all, without conditions and favoritism? Is everyone loved, forgiven and accepted eternally?
  • Do Things Differently: It is my motivation to find a new way to look at everything I read,see and hear. The easiest way to do this is to challenge everything! Learning is a competitive matter between yourself and the source of the information you are learning from. You must find a way that, what you are learning, could be improved. What is the information you are learning, missing? Once you discover that which was not taught, act on it. It is then that you begin to do things differently and you succeed in doing so because instead of waiting for the next step in the lesson, you created the next step. There is always room for improvement.
  • Think Outside Of The Box: This is very similar to doing things differently. Thinking outside of the box requires you to break status quo but, rather than challenge your mind, you have to become mentally creative. (Which may be challenging, but it’s a different type of challenge) Thinking Outside Of The Box also requires you to think about every situation in the one way that very few in the world do – as a life lesson.
  • Character: is the single strongest determinate of your future. Character is the soul of our soul, the heart of our heart, the mind of our mind and the creator of our future success.  When you read about successful people, you will often read countless characteristic words. Collectively, what do they define? Character                    Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. – Helen Keller
  • Dress For Success: In addition to dressing your attitude in the finest garments of value, integrity and positivity, you must have the appearance of the successful. It is as much of a personal mentality as it is an impact on those who judge you (which is everyone). At work where the dress code is casual, I decided to begin wearing a suit and tie. On the third day I met the new executive director who I did not think would be in the office for another week. I was dressed for success and outdressed all the others in the office. You can never be overdressed or overeducated. – Oscar Wilde  Another tip on dressing for success, is the basis of this post, to STANDOUT. Who do you think Stands Out most in the picture? Obviously the guy in green. (Me) Dressing for Success does not mean dressing in blue, black and white every day. If you were to attend a business growth seminar for all the CEO’s of the Fortune 500 companies, you are going to want to Standout among the others dressed in bland and so-called “professional colors”.
  • Be Early: It PAYS to be early
  • Seek Advice: I have to honor Oscar Wilde again for saying “I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.”  While you may use the advice someone gives, it is just as important as to have advice to pass on. When I say to seek advice, I do not mean it in the sense of finding out what advice people have to offer you, but to partake in opportunities which produce advice you can pass on to others.
  • Speak: At every opportunity, make suggestions, voice possibilities to make improvement, ask questions, and participate in every discussion whether it is focused on your area of specifics or not.
  • Public Speak: “One of the greatest individual steps you can take in improving your self image is to learn how to public speak. People automatically give speakers credit for intelligence they don’t necessarily have.” – Zig Ziglar
  • Do More Than Is Required: We learned from above that there is always room for improvement. Well, there is always time and strength to do more than is required. I always say “Go as far as you can see, because once you are there, you can see just a little bit further.” The common thought is that there is nothing better than knowing you had done a good job. I would regularly feel this when I finished painting a room or the exterior of a clients house when I was in the Painting business. Near the end of my painting career I began making more people happier and even earning an extra few dollars. How? By also painting the closet when all that was asked was for the room to be painted. By putting a new coat on the downspouts when I was only supposed to paint the siding. Make this your newest thought, there is nothing better than knowing you did a good job, and a bit extra.
  • Lead: I have to point you toward John Maxwell for the most powering explanation and advice on leadership.
  • Bring The Energy: everywhere you go. Every meeting, every class, every get-together is unbelievably boring when it lacks energy. More importantly, every meeting, every class, every get-together is undeniably life progressive when it has energy. It is up to you to STANDOUT and be the one who brings the energy. Someone mentioned a friend who works at Starbucks with her that is completely energetic every day and exploits the energy with co-workers and customers. However, another co worker or customer might get annoyed by it. There are two responses I have. 1. This friend positively effects infinitely more people with the energy than the opposite. 2. It is not that his energy is annoying, it is the attitude of the one being annoyed. Please do not be the one who is annoyed – be the one who brings the energy. You can’t climb to the top without stepping on a few fingers, it’s better to do so with positive energy than in a negative way.
  • Find Your Passion and Live It: Nothing is more difficult in life than narrowing your interests down to one subject, your passion. When you do this, you have conquered the world. The next step is a form of constant progression – practice your passion.
  • IF: <<read and live it.
  • Health: Referring back to the initial picture in this post, do you know which is packed with more nutrients and vitamins between a carrot and a Lima bean? What is a man if he makes 10 million dollars but suffers a heart attack and loses his health in the process?
  • Positive Attitude: I saved the best for last, also the reason for my signature at the end of each post. There is not a successful person living that does not have a positive attitude. Absolutely no one has achieved a thing without first thinking that they may be able to. There is no victory if there is no thought of it. There is a reason I am writing a book called Infinite Positivity. Stay Positive.

Make your future to  Stand Out among the rest, just as the Lima bean does among the carrots. As a result you will always be on top and successful.When you Stand Out, you stand on top. All of success is about Standing Out in a positive way. The only way to get there is to also be the spoon that stirs the contents in the pot, rub your positive behaviors off on others and influence them. Be the one that prevents others from being burnt.

I have always said, we learn nothing by doing nothing, we learn everything by doing and wishing we hadn’t.

Only thing stopping you from being who you want is yourself.

I began to really Standout when I decided that I just want to make things and be creative, even if no one else loves it.

My statement: We need a positive revolution, one where more is given that you want, then what we are currently doing which is giving less of what you don’t want.

Fall into boundaries that life forces you and join everyone or begin prioritizing what you want and need and not what others want or expect from you.

Stay Positive and Why Fit In When You Were Born To STANDOUT

Garth E. Beyer

The Tipping Point

The world has always been right – little things can make a big difference. But it wasn’t until Malcolm Gladwell gave us the book The Tipping Point to teach is HOW little things can make a big difference. (Thank you to my mom for recommending and lending me the book)

I have to say that this is the longest period I have gone without writing a blog, the main reason is that I have been reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. I’ve also been researching and working on my next Toastmasters speech which you can look forward to later this week. But I would like to say that I finished The Tipping Point today and want to give you a Book Regurgitation post. If you are unfamiliar to this, I take notes whenever I read a book and mark the most important points along with making my own ideas and thoughts based off of what I read. You can click the “Book Regurgitation” category to see a couple of my other posts on books I have read.

What is most exciting is that if you like this post than you can really look forward to my future posts since I have a goal to read 25+ books this year, including all of the books on my book shelf that I have not made time to read. Before you continue, I will give you a heads up that I do not give a clear summary or a critique of the book, if you would like a summary version before you continue you can find it here. Better yet, you have already read the book and are wondering if I have similar thoughts or ideas related to it. Read on and let’s find out. As always, I hope to connect with you, so leave a comment about what you think (and pardon the pun of connect). Actually that’s a great place to start.

I am not a connector. Connectors, being one of the few that usher trends into epidemics of popularity. Or at least, I wasn’t. What I came to find is that I, you, everyone, holds the power to BECOME a connector. You should note that Gladwell never said that connectors were born the way they are, or mavens are raised a particular way to grow up to become a maven. They simply became what was at their core, but that does not mean that someone who is not a connector can’t become one or that someone who is a not a salesman can’t become one or, better yet, someone who is a maven can’t become a salesman too. “…the New Economy is going to lead us to rely more and more on very primitive kinds of social contacts. Relying on the Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen in our life is the way we deal with the complexity of the modern world.” I say, in addition to entering the social circle of Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen — BECOME a bit of each one. As Gladwell stated, we are currently relying on these connections, and will continue to rely on them more and more as the New Economy progresses. Since I am a person who likes to take care of all the tasks instead of assigning someone else, because I know I can do it better – I had to figure out how to become a Connector, a Maven and a Salesman. I do not want to rely on others to take each role. Here are three steps to become each one of the few.

Becoming A Super-Human Vector Of Popularity

Becoming a Connector

  • Open an excel spreadsheet and start inserting everyone you meet. Every business card you get, every teacher you have, every friend you are introduced to, and so on – put their names, contact info, and a description of how you can connect with them (how you met, how you know them, have a similarity). This is where the rule of 150 does not appear.
  • Remember, its the small things that count. Become a connector by getting out and interacting with people. When you are at the bookstore, observe what books people are reading and if you can make a connection. When you purchase something, use the clerk’s name and have them remember you. It is as much getting people to remember you, as it is remembering them. To become a connector, you have to put in two times the effort.
  • Life Optimizer created a fantastic list of how to become a master connector. The first two bullet points are the two biggest factors that I focus on, Life Optimizer hits everything else. View the 106 tips to Become a Master Connector

Becoming a Maven

  • Having a focus and a passion is only detailing the face value of a Maven. In order to truly become one, you have to become detailed. You have to narrow down your focus into one small subject and then expand on it. It’s like going up a family tree, taking one branch that does not make any other branches, and then making a tree from it.  You need to exploit every thought and idea and put them into your focus. If Mavens were Experts, they would call them that, but an Expert is the foster child to a Maven.
  • Book recommendation, Tribes by Seth Godin. In order to become a Maven, you have to have a following in each of your focuses; a select group of people that are connectors and salesmen.
  • Life Optimizer does it again here, How To Become a Maven (Mr. Know Everything)

Becoming a Salesman

  • Read, Listen, Write, Act. I constantly read books on selling, on success, on business, etc. Then I constantly listen to cd’s related to sales like Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, Jim Rohn, and so many others. Let’s just say I have more sales/motivation audio files than I do music on my iPod. I then write out my thoughts, new ideas, actions, reviews, etc in my blog or in my journal as I read and listen. Lastly, I go back and I act on all of the lessons I taught. No better way to become a better salesman then reading, listening, writing, and acting.
  • Actually there is, failing.
  • Yet again, I have to pull a resource from Seth Godin, check out some lens’ on Salesmanship at Squidoo

Reflections, Reactions and Tips

Other than coming up with ideas of how to become each one of the few, the chapters regarding the Law of The Few was much more stimulating to me. Although, It made me feel slightly dumb that I had not thought of categorizing the types of tippers into three small groups. Too often we believe that there are a thousand factors to a business’s success, when really, its tipping point is a matter of one or two small changes. From here on I am going to expand on the points that I noted while I read the book. I did my best to give you a little taste of everything in the book, my views, and the ability to comment on it.

  • I took the surname test and got a score of approx 41. Which was the average score of the test Gladwell gave to his friends and acquaintances, mostly journalists and professionals. He also gave the test to a group of health educators and academics at conference in Princeton, New Jersey and that group scored an average score of 39. It truly surprised me that I ended up knowing this many people, during the first 10-12 lines of names I scored very little. You can try this exercise yourself without getting the book by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
  • “Gosh darn it,” Gau said, “if you don’t try, you’ll never succeed.” I noted this because of the tattoo on my back,”If you don’t try, you fail”.  I also love to think that I am similar to Tom Gau in the sense that I create a persuasive conversational dance with everyone I meet. It is for this reason that I feel I would make a great salesman. Despite my actions you can take to become each one of the few, it puzzles me what made Gau a perfect Salesman. What actions, thoughts, behaviors did he express throughout his life that pushed him in this direction. What was the Tipping Point for him in becoming One of The Few?

The next chapter regarded the stickiness factor, which refers to the unique quality that propels the phenomenon to become “stuck” in the minds of the general public and by collateral, influence their behaviors.

  • Gladwell uses the success of the TV shows, Sesame Street and Blues Clues to define all angles of the stickiness factor. It’s clear that a lot of his focus in explaining the factor is related to children and their TV shows. At the end of the book, Gladwell says to “use the thinking in this book to create something new” and I feel that the following will be my research into the stickiness factor. What makes self-development/motivational/inspirational/self-help/ videos sticky for adults? What would the distractor be? What do adults typically focus on? If it could be done on a larger level, having a 30 minutes motivational boot camp TV series, what are the small additions that would need to be to make it stick? Once I acquire more financial freedom, you can bet you will see a post that provides these answers – just as well as you will see me on my 30 minute motivational boot camp TV series each week. Do you have any ideas?
  • All the more interesting, a factor that is used in children’s TV shows would best be applied to the motivational boot camp series — repetition. Gladwell explains that the repetition that Blues Clues uses giving the children a sense of affirmation and self-worth. Two of the most powerfully positive stimulants one could experience. I personally never looked at repetition in this view, thank you Gladwell for bringing me into the light.

Which brings me to one of the biggest points of the book which is summarized in one sentence and not truly expanded on, so if you missed it here it is.

The tipping point is all about selling one idea at a time.

And the greatest part is that if you use the perfect “little things that make a big difference”, you only have to sell a total of a few ideas.

Now, while the Law of the Few and the stickiness factor were simple, straightforward and packed with specific evidence, Gladwell throws you a broad rule of the epidemic called The Power of Context. In these two chapters he establishes the fact that if the trend is not introduced at the right time, it is unlikely that the tipping point will occur.

  • The infinitely positive attitude I have, provided a nice lens when reading about the fact the minor seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes were the tipping points for violent crimes in the sense that if people saw broken windows and graffiti-stricken walls and trains, then they feel that they are less likely to get caught or be the one at blame. To make it positive, I saw it as the same for extreme success. It’s created by cleaning up the few negative behaviors you have, it is the smallest things that count. Just a reminder to not focus so much on creating progression of success and focus instead, on eliminating the few actions that are preventing you from reaching your goals.
  • Earlier I said that Gladwell stated that he wanted us to think of how the Tipping Point could apply to a situation in our lives. It keeps on coming up! This morning I was talking with my coworkers about the increase in heroin transactions in Madison, WI. If you have read some earlier posts of mine, you know that I live on the east side (the ghetto side), but you will also know that I found a diamond in the rough apartment complex and are actually a good 5 blocks away from all the bad areas of town. I felt a tad special at work when I brought up Gladwell’s example of the van that carried new needles to exchange with used ones. I will definitely keep some attention at the increase of heroin addicts in the city.
  • The second application of the Tipping Point’s take on the broken window theory happened when I saw someone litter – threw a wrapper out of the window. A smoker – who could have guessed? It was most likely the plastic wrapper that encased his pack of death sentences. The idea that if a town were to put into action a group of weekly garbage pickup volunteers, we would Tip the epidemic in the opposite direction. A perfect example is Earth Day, when thousands upon thousands of people volunteer their time to do street side cleanup. Do you notice that after Earth Day each year, the time it takes for garbage to accumulate takes longer. The more garbage there is, the more likely people will be okay with littering. It is like the rule of 72 in reverse, quickly multiplying the amount of garbage being littered. When you look at areas that have organizations that constantly pick up trash, they steadily have less trash to pick up. As much as I support the idea of prevention over clean-up, it was not until I read the Tipping Point that I understood that clean-up is a form of prevention.

  • As I have hopes to run for President in 2028, I was fascinated on the excerpt study on the fact the people voted more republican because the reporter smiled more when talking about the republican. Aside from the fact (which Gladwell explains further in his book) that people mimic motions of the body and facial movements of the person they are having a conversation with, people take it on an emotional level.
  • I tested the first factor of mimicking expressions a couple ways. The first was that I smiled more when my roommate came home or walked into the room. It was immediately reflected. No wonder they say smiling is contagious, but they forgot to expand it — every facial movement is contagious. In addition to smiling each time she walked in the room, I would also have a puzzled look, a weird look, a sweet luck, a mad look, all of them reflected. I also tested it out while walking up the street on the way home from my bus stop. Another person was walking on the sidewalk coming at me and we both put on a flat, tough, apprehensive looking face. We mimicked the expression of the other person.
  • One of the  most interesting points was when Gladwell took a look at “character” and “the mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing”. This tendency is termed the Fundamental Attribution Error, which is a “fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people’s behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context.” A way he goes about explaining this is in a test of cheating on a test. (What an oxymoron).
  • Why this test caught my attention was that I am working on a blog post about the difference between being smart and bullshitting a paper and being dumb and bullshitting a paper. I have had friends get upset that I received an A on a smartly bullshitted paper and have even had them call me a cheater for it. I wont lie, what they called me can be the truth sometimes. I have cheated on school work before — I can recall a time in World Geography class when I wrote the capital of each state on a piece of paper so that I only had to memorize where all the 50 states were and not their capitols. What would my peers say about my character? They would call me a cheater. But that is false. —

“Character, then, isn’t what we think it is or, rather, what we want it to be. It isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason that most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are really good at controlling our environment. I have a lot of fun at dinner parties. As a result, I throw a lot of dinner parties and my friends see me there an think that I’m fun. But if I couldn’t have lots of dinner parties, if my friends instead tended to see me in lots of different situations over which I had little or no control — like, say, faced with four hostile youths in a  filthy, broken-down subway — they probably wouldn’t think of me as fun anymore”

So yes, I am a cheater in the environment and context of 9th grade world geography class during a test on all the states and capitols. I am not, however, a cheater in environmental science class, or at the workplace or at home. Thus, calling me a cheater falls under the Fundamental Attribution Error.  This is the reason why people can do terrible in school, but miraculous at the work place. It is why people may be dumb as hell, but are the greatest boxers in the world. You would call them neither, poorly educated or workaholics, nor would you say that a person has the brain capacity of a jellyfish or is a fitness expert. They are both, all of the above, and a whole lot of other things too. It is all a matter of context.

  • The second chapter on the law of context explains a 150 personal connection rule. I found it fascinating that a number could be pinned and as social as I am, I found that in each area of my interests, I can’t really connect with more than 150 people on a personal level. The concept also sparked an idea for my public speaking events. I will have networking before the event, but it will be divided into groups of a 125. Instead of having seats lined up in rows and all 2,000 people together, it would be broken up into sections. And since I plan on having two to three day seminars, the people would keep their same seats because they can feel comfortable with their group. If a person is too worried about what the other people around them are thinking about them, they wont be able to pay attention to the lessons I am speaking on. I am not only benefiting myself by breaking up groups into less than 150, but also benefiting the people themselves. In the sense, we are all the same, we cannot connect with more than 150 people in a the same group at once… it can’t reach that point of connection which is important in inspirational public speaking engagements.
  • To continue, the groups I would be speaking to, Gladwell would call the revolutionaries or innovators and early adopters. The ones willing to try it out and test it, to take the risk. These people would receive revolutionary changing ideas from me. The problem that Gladwell expands on is the chasm between the early adopters and the attitude of the early majority – they are incompatible. An idea or invention cannot spread easily between the two, and this is what I fear most. I am currently focused on connecting  with the revolutionaries instead of the early majority. It’s similar to a business plan, a person can have a plan to be successful in business, but they forget to plan their removal of the business equation – give someone else the hard work to do while you reap the profits and start on some new idea.

  • In the two matters of memory – rumors and mental capacity – I found the capacity factor the most interesting. It explains one person in a relationship does not need to maintain certain memories, because their partner will. I thought of my roommate and how much information I purposefully ignore because I know she will remember it, leaving me with more capacity to recall what I really want. A beautiful observation that I was unclear of until I read this book.
  • Something else that caught my attention –but I can’t read my handwriting to indicate the page number it was on– was the act of piggyback riding. It had to do with the AirWalk shoes. They used their marketing to target each upcoming epidemic. Now I want to bring an idea up with you that relates to this. Recently I have been offered a Financial Advising position and am going to turn it down. Despite their persuasions that all of the baby boomers are not turning 65+ and they are in desperate need to receive financial guidance, I disagree. This particular time of need is quickly declining as the baby boomers are soon beginning to die and the fact that they have never had any financial direction, and are very unlikely to take advice even though they need it. I will be turning down the offer in order to prepare for the next epidemic – when the 75+ trillion dollars of money that is being transferred from the elders to their young. It is these people that need the financial guidance and have the time and attention to handle the knowledge. I am going to piggyback ride the epidemic of wealth transfer as a way to promote and succeed in the world of financial advising.

The End of The Tipping Point (Or rather, the beginning of all the Tipping Points)

“She changed the context of her message. She changed the messenger, and she changed the message itself. She focused her efforts. This is the first lesson of the Tipping Point. Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas. “ “The theory of Tipping points requires, however, that we re-frame the way we think about the world.” “All of these things are expressions of the peculiarities of the human mind and heart, a refutation of the notion that the way we function and communicate and process information is straightforward and transparent. it is not. it is messy and opaque” “The Ivory soap 800 number is what I call a Maven trap”

These are brief statements I highlighted, from the conclusion onto the forward of the Tipping Point where Gladwell unleashes himself. The ideas, points, references, case studies that he shares at the end the book are truly remarkable. If you do not want to read the whole book, let this be your cheat – read the conclusion and forward.

Wanting to know if you are a connector? Or want to know about Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point and his other writings? You can visit his website here.

The book broken into my reactions –> Hmm, interesting, very interesting, wow, interesting, so true, hmm, seriously? Why didn’t I think of that before, interesting, so true, WOW…… it pretty much goes on from there and repeats. Saying this book is worth a read is an understatement.

Stay Positive and Three Cheers For The Law Of The Few – To the Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen

Garth E. Beyer